Yes, yes, there’s also a Tintin game, for some reason. I mean I know Ubisoft are French and everything, but come on now. Make a Metabarons game or something. Oh, it’s because there’s a movie. Ubi says: “Based on the highly anticipated feature film The Adventures of Tintin directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by Steven Spielberg, [two people called Steven Spielberg! – ed] Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy, The Adventures of Tintin: The Game will provide Tintin fans, both young and old, the opportunity to dive into the world of Tintin and relive key adventures from the series.”

It actually looks rather… varied? That is a way I can describe it. It might be good. But it will still be a game about Tintin. Trailer down there. You know the drill. Man, I have DEFINITELY posted enough trailers for the rest of the time the Earth has left before it is engulfed by our dying sun.

Also, i hate Spielburger.
I´ve read all of the comics and theyre classics.

i hate these finance crisis times, everyone is putting out franchise sequel after sequel –
wish i´d see more original stuff, or even just “beyond good or evil 2″.

what struck me about the e3 videoes was just how plain boring they were, not showcasing anything remotely looking like an original concept, in plot nor in game mechanics.
The presenters, were ofcourse going yadda yadda, next coming of christ….. but wth, there are new suckers born every day, and i guess they deserve to play high-res versions of stuff i played in ´97, but with crappier storylines hahaha

My sarcasm was as unnecessary as it was misunderstood. It sounds a tad rude in retrospect. I merely find it odd that in the same breath as you complain about franchise expansions, you ask for one. I do understand the difference between Beyond Good and Evil 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, but I would personally still much rather have an original game than either.

Just because a game is good doesn’t mean it needs or should have a sequel. But nostalgia sells, hence both your desire for a Beyond Good and Evil sequel and the population at large enjoying the games you bemoan. Hypocrisy is not as bad a thing as it is reputed to be, however and as such I apologize for the impulsiveness of my response.

Perhaps you should rethink your complaints about the wills and desires of others in light of your own nostalgia’s demands, however.

Cheers!

Edit: Sequels that improve on the original game are bloody well welcome by me, however, if they are different enough. Arkham City may well be. Skyrim sounds like it might finally be the game Elder Scrolls has wanted to be for a long time in a way none of the others quite reached. But we say that everytime … Mass Effect 3 is the completion of a story arc, though gameplay-wise may not be an evolution. In short, there are plenty of sequels coming out that have good reasons to be doing so, and as we know next-to-nothing about Beyond Good and Evil 2, the only reasons for it’s existence are that the first one was good, and someone said they were making it once.

I used to read the Tintin books. Lots of great stuff! Captain Haddock hallucinating in the desert and picturing Tintin as a bottle of wine. It was always strong on the comedy as a second suit to the action, like a sort of inverted Asterix.

I think the point I had to get out was when he shot a plane out of the sky with a pistol while adrift at sea. Even my self of much tenderer years couldn’t suspend that kind of disbelief.

While I do like the visual style, why not make it more akin to Herge’s actual BD-visuals (“ligne claire”)? I for one would have been much happier with cel-shaded visuals (or at the very least characters).

Tintin in the Congo was “appropriate” for its time (I should probably go retrieve my flame-shield). It was not until the last 30 years or so that the book generated controversy and Hergé himself regretted his creation once he got older. I guess general attitude has changed since more than 80 years ago when it was first published. Yes, it’s totally racist and probably pro-colonialism too but still correct in its “context”, but then again racism was very prevalent across Europe in the thirties, causing events leading up to WW2.

I am aware of all that. I understand Herge is no more a horrible person than Doctor Seuss, and that there are equally racist cartoonists who never repented or expressed remorse for worst works (Doctor Seuss wrote Horton Hears a Who, but beyond that I’m not aware of much of an apology from him either). I also understand there are plenty of Tintin books that don’t contain anything of the sort.

But your statement and mine belong in the same paragraph. They aren’t mutually exclusive. It would be silly to ignore the impact Mickey Mouse and other Disney creations have had on cartoons, animated film, and on children. It would be equally silly to, because of that legacy, handwave away the racism and sexism that pervades early Disney works and even makes it’s way into some of the more recent ones. It is unfair to dismiss the discomfort some people feel with respect to the offending works by stating that it made sense at the time. Because the fact is it didn’t make sense at the time. It was never alright. It was socially acceptable, but that was a rather big problem. As you mentioned, a problem that contributed to war and death.

Rest assured, I can read Tintin and enjoy it. I can watch Disney films and enjoy them. I love reading Doctor Seuss. But I don’t think the timing of some of these rather appalling sentiments excuses them. I understand a fair bit about social psychology, and how racism propagates, and so forth … but I think we need to apply those sorts of understandings carefully. “Everybody’s doing it” will never, ever make cruelly ignorant and inhuman acts and sentiments acceptable. There’s a point where society doesn’t function properly unless we hold people accountable for their actions, even if it turns out that free will is completely non-existent. Our social systems simply aren’t designed to work if no-one is accountable simply due to the existence of peer pressure.

At best, the “signs of the times” argument leaves the creators of dehumanizing works easy room for redemption of their persons.

We share a great deal of sentiment but I’d like to finally highlight the point of us having to excuse some of these past transgressions. Especially in this day and age we do not need to go back more than 50 years to see a noticeable difference in the way our parents thoughts differed from ours. The way we perceive ourselves and our world continuously advance ( I hope ) and what actions, thoughts, feelings, etc. may seem acceptable at one point in time may become unacceptable in the future. Humankind is ever changing. Therefore it should not be perceived as surprising when a part of our culture changes and the old ways are deemed unacceptable in favor of modern thinking. Similarly something we write today may be offensive tomorrow and while we intended no harm we have nevertheless offended. Thus we can only evaluate intent in the correct context ( I did intend to write time period but seeing as human culture is already very varied in the present, it seemed moot ) to determine whether or not a transgression has been made and forgive those who have erred but realized their mistakes. It may seem like easy redemption and perhaps it should be if there was no intent to harm or hurt. I hope I did not misinterpret your post.

Only slightly. My comment wasn’t intended to imply that “easy redemption” was a bad thing in my view. I agree that ease of redemption should match the severity of damage done to other people.

For a bit of perspective, I’ve always been disturbed by the precise way former members of the Nazi party have been pursued to the point that minor officers with little power then or now have been tried, and jailed at ages in the 90s. I understand this uncompromising attitude, but also understand the lessons of the Stanford Prison experiment and other studies into the power of suggestion, social role, and authority. It is an extremely complicated and delicate issue. I long ago resolved never to hate anyone, and both philosophically and emotionally no longer feel capable of it. People are far too suggestible for us to hate individuals who do hateful things. It is a useless endeavor. I understand how social pressures can alter our perspectives without us realizing or having any control. If we are to hate, I believe we should always hate actions and ideas rather than people.
But I don’t think that excuses the actions. I don’t believe in a strict, immovable moral code but I believe there are certain types of prejudice that are never acceptable, characterized by a willful ignorance of the mistaken ideas of the past. I don’t think we should hate Herge because of Tintin’s Congo adventure, but neither should we tolerate the adventure itself. More importantly, I believe what I mentioned above about accountability for these sorts of things being an important part of our society. We need to be careful that when we are forgiving of individuals, we are not excusing or accepting hateful or dehumanizing actions in the process. We need to make a clear line between saying “Herge is a great guy” and “hey, don’t worry about Tintin in the Congo.”

On the other hand, there’s a point when those things just aren’t specifically important anymore and it’s not healthy to fixate on specific events and pieces of media in our history. I’ve never really bought the idea that we can’t forget the things that happened–even the great tragedies. It would be sad to remember WWII as a horrible atrocity only to forget the political and social situations that led to it and make the same mistakes another time. It is those contexts that need to be remembered, how we got to where we did rather than who attacked whom first. On the other OTHER hand, we need to remember specific examples to truly effectively understand the types of social mistakes and prejudices that cause those sorts of atrocities. It’s very difficult for humans to hold on to abstract concepts without a modicum of concrete foundation being poured. Again, it’s not that simple.

I neither blame Herge nor think badly of his later work. But not blaming him doesn’t mean I’m ok with it. That’s a line that’s a bit dangerous and difficult to draw–how bad can racism and dehumanizing speech get before we stop accepting it as the fault of someone’s upbringing? It is a true shame for a person to be conditioned and educated in a way that makes their actions unacceptable in our society without any true choice on their part, but when that education and conditioning becomes part of their identity we sort of have no choice but to deal with the individual on the terms of that identity or attempt to re-educate and condition them. We have decided or simply evolved to understand one another as individuals; unless you aim to change something that fundamental to our society, we have to find a way to hold individuals accountable for their actions in order to maintain that sort of structure. Forgiveness and accountability go hand in hand, allowing us to distinguish between the person who comes out of the experience and the actions performed that we must censure and in some cases punish.

P.S. I really appreciate your comment about the context sensitive nature of crime and transgression. I very much agree with the sentiment in a philosophical sense. I certainly believe that even the immovable aspects of my own moral code have no inherent value in the universe and are the results of both genetics and upbringing. But in practice, I think the illusions of choice moral consistency are essential to our society and it’s maintenance.

I don’t recall any desert shoot-outs in Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s Treasure, not least because they didn’t actually go to any deserts, but for a guy who is supposed to be a reporter Tintin is pretty gun-happy.

@ Jahkaivah: Oh, I didn’t mean full-stop, I can think of two other stories off the top of my head where they gallavant around the Arabian peninsula, just the Unicorn books which they are adapting for the film.

@fuggles: I’d have thought an episodic Telltale game rendered in the style of the comics would be a much better fit than an action-focussed game-of-the-movie. Or maybe a stealth/adventure hybrid a bit like the Doctor Who games only not rubbish. Charles Cecil might do well – the Broken Sword games aren’t a million miles from the source material to start with.

The film (and supposedly the game) is actually combining The Crab with the Golden Claws with The Secret of the Unicorn and Red Rackham’s Treasure. Hence why theres also a massive ship and an introduction to the captain.

Lets hope the gunplay isnt representative of the gameplay at large.
There was plenty of running and driving in the comics tho…and sneaking- hope they get the humor right, and yes i would have preferred some Cel Animation closer to Hergé´s original art syle.

dont think it´ll be a winner for me, this one, but then again im huddled in the corner crying after seeing the E3 games on offer.

I dunno. I seem to recall a lot of car chases, running and jumping over stuff while being shot at, punches being thrown.. I mean, would you prefer that those be cut-scenes and the gameplay consist of trying to keep Bianca Castafiore away from Dr. Calculus by means of verbal misdirection?

I guess I’d prefer them to not make a game out of a franchise that isn’t very suitable for making a game out of. Maybe a point-and-click adventure would make more sense? I dunno. It just feels wrong, somehow. I have fond impressions of the comic books and TV series and it stings a bit to see them treating Tintin like this.

Q: How do modern entertainment producers usually choose to interpret decades-old IP?

A: Any way they want.

I mean, take a look at what Bethesda did with Fallout … and we loved it.

All things considered, that Tintin may engage in a bit more gunplay and fisticuffs is a minor concern when he could have been a muscular American secret agent who travels the world with his bodacious girlfriend, Captain Hotdock.

Also I remember in one of the later books, Tintin explains to Chinese boy that people are just afraid because of western stereotypes, and the Thomsons are portrayed as ridiculous for dressing up to look like said stereotype.

I want more trailers…so far Rage, prey 2 and Batman are to buy possibles due to this blog…and the Star Wars intro was superb….game looks dire though…I hate MMO’s…
TinTin has a probabably the most powerful hand gun in the world…thats a thought…someone should make a game with CLint in…a Western or Dirty Harry….then make a sequel…

Hmm..a game about a boy who beats up adults…tsch…sounds like the kids round where I used to live…

Looks like a combination of violence and platform jumping, with a few vehicle sections thrown in. I don’t want to be mindlessly negative, but what a waste. Tintin might not be the greatest game licence in the world, but you could at least try to make some sort of awesome sprawling detective-journalist adventure game.

Being that Tintin is from Belgium (the author is from the french speaking part, which is probably best known among RPS members because FN-Herstal, the creators of the FAL and the SCAR and the M249 and the M240 etc. are there), I’d love to see that they translate this to dutch as well (First language it was translated into, because it’s from belgium and all that). I just really want to hear DUIZEND BOMMEN EN GRANATEN in a game.

What I learned from watching that trailer is that they seem to have completely abandoned the olde Tintin music from this franchise reinvigoration:
… in favour of the generic movie music we heard above. Which makes me sad.

Honestly, I would have been very surprised if the Hollywood live-action films had kept the music from the French-Canadian cartoon ; but I understand your disappointment because I felt the same when the Asterix film didn’t use the music from the 1967 cartoon:

There’s been a few Tintin games already in the past, some 2D platformers on 16-bit systems and a semi-3D platformer on the original Playstation but those were based on the comic book.

Don’t expect new settings or stories in the films (or in the games) because the IP holders won’t allow it, unless Spielberg’s big Hollywood money had them change their minds. Also Tintin is not allowed to die in the games (he just falls unconscious, ok it’s not that big a difference) or kill people.